Deeper Commentary

Hos. 1:1 The beginning of the word of Yahweh that came to Hosea- We will note on :2 that the word which came to Hosea was a call to live a life which reflected God's grace and anguish for Israel. The word that comes to us is likewise not simply lexical items and sentences of words, but a life lived in practice after the pattern of the Lord Jesus, the word made flesh as to a lesser extent Hosea was.

That came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel- Let’s remember that the events in Hosea’s life, according to the information in Hos. 1:1, occurred over a span of at least 30, and perhaps even 50 years. His love for Gomer was the love of a lifetime, the hope and pain of a lifetime. He was an amazing man, as Yahweh is an amazing God, to love to the end such a bad woman. It could be argued that the word that came to Hosea was to love and marry such a bad woman. For the book of Hosea appears to be entirely relevant to Israel at the end of their time in the land, just prior to the Assyrian invasion; and the appeals to Judah reference their partial faithfulness, which was relevant to Judah at that time. None of it, e.g., appears relevant to the time of Hezekiah. But Hosea's ongoing love for his wives was God's word to Israel and Judah throughout this long time period. And this in its turn reflects the long term love of the eternal God for His people. The judgments threatened in Hosea are sometimes hard to pin down, and this may be because his words were equally relevant to the judgments upon both Israel and Judah; hence as explained on :5, "the day of Jezreel" could refer to incidents within the judgments of both Israel and Judah.

Hos. 1:2 When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea- The first time the word of the Lord came to Hosea, he was told to marry “a wife of whoredoms”. Note that this was “the beginning of the word of the Lord” to him (Hos. 1:2- NEV "When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea"). He’d have been tempted to just ignore it, to think he’d been dreaming something, to run away from it. But to his credit, he obeyed. According to the Mosaic Law, a whore should be burnt. She shouldn’t be married. Hosea was told to break the letter of the Law, and marry a prostitute. And he was told to be a father to her “children of whoredoms”. And so he began what was to be quite a theme in both his life and his prophecy- that in the face of sin, God shows His grace. We’ve likely all seen this in our own lives- at our very weakest moments, the kindness and care of God for us is revealed. Humanly, when someone does something wrong to us, we respond in anger and dissociation from them. The grace of God is quite the other way. In the very depths of Israel’s unfaithfulness, God reminds them through the prophets of His love for them, and His plan to ultimately save them. But God’s grace can’t be abused endlessly. ..

Yahweh said to Hosea, Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh- See on Hos. 2:4 Her children. The extent of God’s grace is powerfully reflected through the life of Hosea. Hosea was asked to manifest the love of God towards Israel, with all the emotional pain that this involved. The unfaithfulness of Gomer to Hosea represented Israel's idolatry and unfaithfulness to God. The ten commandments taught that adultery was to be paralleled with idolatry. The two tablets each contained five commandments, and each of them were related to the other- thus the second commandment "You shall have no other gods" corresponds to the seventh, "You shall not commit adultery".

We could read this as saying that the word of Yahweh came to Hosea in that he was told to marry a prostitute. Prostitutes were to burnt under the law. Not loved and married. Israel were condemned to destruction. But God wanted to marry them and offer them a new covenant and another marriage. Hosea was to live this out with Gomer. That word of God became flesh. In that Hosea's love for Gomer and feelings towards her were God's word of appeal to Israel. In this case, we can assume that the Hosea - Gomer relationship was very public knowledge to many in Israel.

There is the possibility that Hosea writes this looking back at what had happened, proleptically- just as Joseph after the event declared that God had sent him into Egypt (Gen. 45:5). Joseph didn't get a command to go into Egypt. He only later perceived that he had been sent there, and when he first went into Egypt, this was not because he was obeying any command to go there. Likewise Paul's conclusion that he had been set apart for missionary ministry from before his birth (Gal. 1:15). Possibly this is another example. Hosea, like God, married Gomer / Israel believing she was going to be faithful, but she wasn't. Or perhaps Hosea like God married this woman foreknowing what she would be like, but hoping that his love would change her and make her loyal to him.

The reference to "the land" in Hos. 1:2 ["a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery"]. is because the idea was that worshippers slept with cult prostitutes to symbolize how the gods slept with the land and made it fertile. Gomer's literal infidelity was in order to get material benefit from her lovers; she was addicted to both sex and materialism. She was probably herself a cult prostitute. And this spoke of how Israel literally slept with the cult prostitutes and committed spiritual prostitution against Yahweh, hoping for material blessing from the Baal cults. Hence Hos. 2:5 "I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water". Yet Hosea provided Gomer all she needed, just as Yahweh did for His people.

Receipt of God’s true revelation involved dialogue with God, even disagreement with Him for a moment, response, pleading, speech and counterspeech. It wasn’t a case of merely passively hearing a voice and writing it down. Part and parcel of hearing the word of God and being inspired with it was to react to it in daily life- hence Ezekiel couldn’t mourn for his wife, Hosea had to marry a whore as a reflection of God’s love for Israel, Isaiah had to walk naked (Is. 3:17). Truly “The prophet threw his whole self into his prophecy, and made not his lips alone, but his whole personality, the vehicle of the divine ‘word’” (H.H. Rowley, The Servant Of The Lord (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965) p. 118.). The inner accord which the prophets had with the mind and word of God led to their personalities being like God’s.

Adultery of course implies that she wasn’t adulterous at the time of marriage. Additionally, Andersen and Freedman argue on grammatical grounds that “a wife of whoredoms” in Hos. 1:2 means a wife who would become adulterous (F. Andersen and D.N. Freedman, Hosea (London: Doubleday, 2004 ed.) p. 159.). No young man would surely marry a woman whom he knew would be adulterous later on. And yet perhaps in a way Hosea is saying that he did know this, but, his love for her was so strong, he married her. Just like God, when He met idol-worshipping Israel in the wilderness. They carried through the desert their god Remphan and the tabernacle of Moloch with them, as well as Yahweh’s tabernacle. And yet it was there that Yahweh, the God who knows the future and the destiny and spiritual path of every man, fell in love with them and spread His skirt over them in love and delight and betrothal (Ez. 16,23). Just as Hosea did. For he married Gomer bat Diblaim (Hos. 1:3)- which was apparently the name for a temple prostitute (H.W. Wolff, Confrontations with Prophets (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 17).

Hos. 1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son- See on :2. The usual Biblical rubric for describing conception and birth is to say that a man goes in to a woman, she conceives, and bears a child. Hos. 1:3 says that Gomer conceives and bears a son to Hosea; there is no mention that he ‘went in’ to her, and in Hos. 1:6,8 we are told simply that Gomer conceived. The way the final child is called Lo-ammi was because “ye are not my people” (Hos. 1:9). This suggests that although Hosea did presumably have sexual relations with Gomer, these children were not actually conceived from him- i.e. she was continuing her relations with other men. This suggestion is confirmed by the way that Hosea asks the children when they are older to plead with their mother to stop her adultery (Hos. 2:2). Hosea explains further: “Their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers…” (Hos. 2:5).

"Gomer" means 'Enough!' or 'complete'. Hosea prophesied at the time the 10 tribe kingdom of Israel were about to go into captivity for their prostitution. His book and his life were therefore a last mintue appeal to them to repent and accept God's love for them- even though their sin was complete, it had gone far enough, and they had to be judged. But even then, Yahweh was desperate to save them, and still desperately loved them. "Diblaim" in Hebrew rhymes with "Ephraim", Hosea's favourite description of "Israel". So again the connection between Gomer and the 10 tribes is further cemented.

Hos. 1:4 Yahweh said to him, Call his name Jezreel- Hosea has to name the subsequent children Jezreel, speaking of God’s plan to avenge Himself and “to cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel”, Lo-ruhamah (“for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel”) and Lo-ammi (“for you are not my people”) (Hos. 1:4,6,9). Hosea isn’t the only example of a person being taught by personal experience how God Himself feels. The whole parenting experience is another example. Or take Amos’ message to Amaziah: “Your wife shall be a harlot in the city [Bethel- the house of God], and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land [i.e. Amaziah’s personal family plot] shall be parcelled out by line” (Am. 7:17 RSV). It was God’s wife who acted as a harlot in the house of God, it was God’s children who fell by the sword, it was God’s land which was divided to others. But He wanted Amaziah to know how it feels, to some extent, to be God. And in our lives there are multiple examples [if we perceive them] of Him doing likewise, in seeking to explain to us how He, our Father, really feels.

For yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu- God sees that our behaviour can be read on more than one level; the same action has elements of righteousness and sin within it. Thus Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was commanded by God, and Jehu was praised for his obedience in doing it (2 Kings 10:30,31), but he was also condemned for it (Hos. 1:4). Yet we simply cannot make such analysis, although we must recognize that this is in fact how God analyzes. And for this reason alone, we are quite unable to anticipate the outcome of the judgment with regard to other believers.

We see an example of God’s sensitivity in this prophecy that the blood of Jezreel would be visited upon the house of Jehu (Hos. 1:4). At Jezreel, Jehu had killed Ahab’s family in a quite literal bloodbath. And God had commented that because Jehu had done this and thus fulfilled His word, Jehu’s family would reign for the next four generations (2 Kings 10:30). So why, then, does Hosea start talking about punishing the house of Jehu for what they did to the house of Ahab? Jehu became proud about the manner in which he had been the channel for God’s purpose to be fulfilled, inviting others to come and behold his “zeal for the Lord” (2 Kings 10:16). Jehu and his children showed themselves to not really be spiritually minded, and yet they prided themselves in having physically done God’s will. And because of this, Hosea talks in such angry terms about retribution for what they had done; the house of Jehu’s act of obedience to God actually became something his family had to be punished for, because they had done it in a proud spirit. We see this all the time around us. Men and women who clearly are instruments in God’s hand, like the Assyrians were, doing His will… but being proud about it and becoming exalted in their own eyes because of it. And Hosea is so sensitive to the awfulness of this, he goes ballistic about it.

And will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease- This would have reference to the ending of Jehu's dynasty with the death of Jeroboam II at Jezreel (:5).

Hos 1:5 It will happen in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel- This could refer to judgments upon both Israel and Judah at different times; see on :1. "The bow" refers to human strength. And this was to be broken. It was whilst Israel felt strong that they committed adultery against God, and we see this reflected in how men who feel 'strong' in various areas of human life tend to then become sexually promiscuous. Judah were defeated here by the Assyrians, to whom Hosea refers specifically in his later prophecies,; but even then, through the ministry of Isaiah and Hezekiah there was the possibility of salvation. And this grace and opportunity within Divine judgment is to be typical of Hosea. The more obvious fulfilment is to the ending of Jehu's dynasty with the death of Jeroboam II at Jezreel (:4); this may also be the reference of Hos. 10:14. Zechariah who followed him was not from that dynasty, and in that sense the "bow" or dynasty ended (Ps. 127:4).

To break a bow is a figure common in Assyrian reliefs and inscriptions; it refers to a military defeat. But when were Israel militarily defeated at Jezreel? Perhaps this was a threat made that God didn't carry out, just as Hosea threatens Gomer with things that he doesn't carry out. But "Jezreel" also means 'God sows'. Within this threat of destruction there is the hint of hope, that a phoenix will arise, some potential new life will be sown. Likewise we read that the calley of Achor, the symbol of Achan's permanent destruction and barring from entering the Kingdom, will become a "door of hope". And so Hosea's threats to Gomer also include within them the latent hope that somehow, their hopeless relationship will come to loving fruition.

Hos 1:6 She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, Call her name Lo-Ruhamah- See on :4. "I will no more have grace" was how Hosea doubtless felt, having had mercy upon Gomer over so many incidents; and now again she conceives by another man. This reflects the just anger of God at sin, that as it were flares up in His face. But the tortured prophecy and experience of Hosea comes to the conclusion that God like Hosea will in fact allow mercy to triumph over judgment. "I will not have pity / mercy / compassion" alludes to how pity / mercy is at the heart of God's Name and covenant relationship (Ex. 34:6). We will see on :9 that God was abrogating His own Name and being by saying this. So it was said with difficulty, as a reflection of the extreme difficulty God felt in ending His covenant relationship with His people. Even if they from their side had long ago broken that covenant.

For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them- Even if this is applied to the 'utter taking away' [Heb.] of the ten tribes, there were still plans for their restoration and ultimate salvation, as various of the prophets make continually clear. "Have mercy" effectively means 'to forgive'. Here we see how Hosea is going to vacillate between such feelings, and on the other hand, an amazing forgiveness. Likewise, there are statements in Hosea that Hosea / God will slay Gomer / Israel, send them to Egypt... and yet also, "love them freely" and save them. This merges seamlessly into an explanation of how God feels, with "repentings kindled together", wanting to not forgive but coming to forgive. His forgiveness is hereby demonstrated to certainly not be automatic, to involve a process and a struggle, and to be painful.

Hosea spoke in God’s Name. He would’ve known how that Name was a memorial of the characteristics of God, His pity, mercy, forgiveness etc. as outlined in Ex. 33:19. And yet Hosea uses those very words in saying that now, God will not have mercy, pity or forgiveness toward Israel. But Hosea spoke in the Name of Yahweh; and predicted that the Yahweh who had been their elohim from the land of Egypt, would still be their God (Hos. 12:9). In this we see Hosea’s personal involvement in the tension of God; for he spoke in God’s Name, with all that Name implied. And we too carry that Name, having been baptized into it. And we speak in that Name to this world, bearing within us the same conflict between the reality of future judgment, and the earnest grace of God to save this world. Hosea's prophecy concludes by declaring the victory over the pole of God's graciousness over that of His necessary judgment of sin. "I will love them freely", with the freedom of Divine grace. And yet that final Divine position is arrived at through all the anger against sin which there has to be.

Hos 1:7 But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Yahweh their God, and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen- As noted on :6, this was how God felt at the time. As I will note on :11, God's purpose changed in this matter of rejecting Israel and saving Judah. But later prophecies indicate His desire for the repentance, salvation and final ingathering of the ten tribes as well as Judah; and eventually He has to judge Judah as He judged Israel, with Ezekiel pointing out that Judah ended up even more sinful that Israel. We see here that just as Hosea's feelings ebbed and flowed, so it is with God. He is not capricious nor unstable; it's just that His gracious, saving love ends up stronger than His desire and necessity of judging sin. When we say that "God is love", we must remember the tortuous internal path that He has travelled to that point.

"I will save them..." alludes to the meaning of 'Hosea'- 'to set free, to
save' or 'he has set free, he has saved'. It is the component of 'Ya-hoshua', Yah saves, 'Jesus'. This was what Hosea stood for- saving his wife, through much internal suffering. God is saying 'I will be Hosea to them'. Clearly we have established that Hosea is going to represent the saving love of Yahweh. And he plus 'Yah' becomes 'Yahoshua', Jesus, so here we see an OT anticipation of the spirit of the Lord Jesus.

A fair translation of :6,7 would be:

"No longer will I have compassion on the house of Israel
let alone that I would forgive, yes forgive them
but on the house of Judah I will have compassion
and I will set them free by Yahweh their God".

This would imply that Judah had also sinned, but they would be shown compassion and given freedom, a figure for forgiveness. The truth was that God did forgive Israel. But in the short term, recalling that Hosea prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah, He did send Israel into captivity whereas He forgave Judah and saved them- at Hezekiah's time. But that forgiveness was on the basis of grace alone, for there was no evidence that there was much loyalty to Yahweh in Hezekiah's time. As Isaiah often says, they were saved from the Assyrian encirclement of Jerusalem not by human sword, bow etc., but by Yahweh's Angelic cherubim.

Hos 1:8 Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son- Breast feeding is often a natural form of contraception. For her to become immediately pregnant as soon as she had finished breast feeding could indicate a sexual obsession on her part, which will be noted later. And the child she conceived was not Hosea's people (:9), again, she had been unfaithful to him.

Hos 1:9 He said, Call his name Lo-Ammi; for you are not My people, and I will not be yours- The implication is that Gomer fell pregnant not by Hosea but by her lovers at the idol sanctuary. This is confirmed by God's later statement that Israel had been unfaithful to Him (as in Jer. 3:20) and had given birth to foreigners' children (Hos. 5:7).

Lo-Ammi- See on 1:3,4. Hosea names his child [if indeed he was the father of it], ‘Not my people’. Consider his hurt, to reject a child from his family. This was God’s hurt. God, like Hosea, had no other children, no other people. For God to say to Israel ‘You are not My people’ would leave God without a people, as it were alone in the earth. Hosea shared the tragic loneliness of God. In the end, God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. But that final position of God was as it were arrived at through the traumatic process of feeling just as Hosea did, that 'these are not My children'. We are left to imagine the web of lies, crocodile tears and fake repentances all spun by Gomer, and the endless tug upon the heart strings of Hosea because, quite simply, he so loved her. And all this God experiences oftentimes with man, with us, with you and me. For all our sins and modern day idolatries are symbolized in her behaviour.

"I will not be yours" is literally "I will not be". It is a play on the Yahweh Name. Literally 'I will not be', the inversion of 'I will be who I will be'. The same root verb "to be" is used as in the YHWH Name. The Hebrew simply reads as the negative of the Yahweh Name. To the Hebrew mind, to this day, this is just a terrible thing to say, read or hear. It verges almost on the blasphemous and inappropriate, as does so much in Hosea. Yahweh was the covenant Name, and the idea is surely that just as Hosea wanted to break his marriage covenant with Gomer, so Yahweh wanted to stop being Yahweh for Israel and thus end the covenant. "I will not be" Yahweh is also tantamount to suggesting the death of Yahweh, who by nature is "I who will be". This shocking idea is found in similar passages that speak of Israel as a young woman who was left widowed- her husband, Yahweh, had as it were died. The figure reflects how God felt He had died in the death of Israel, showing for all time the truth of the oft observed fact: that something of us dies in the death of those we love. Poets, writers, artists of all human societies have come to that realization. For in this way, man in his usual path through life, losing loved ones along the way, is prepared for his own death. For Hebrew man, to be bereft of wife and children was to become nothing, to 'not be'. And this is how Yahweh felt. Without Israel, He 'was not'. In this we see the extent to which God is as it were in need of man. Without His woman Israel, He like Hosea was left ashamed, humiliated, a laughing stock to other men, the rejected lover whose honour has been violated, and who is seeking another path for that love. Yahweh presents as having great internal pain and torture of mind, eaten up with unresolve, failing to resolve the situation- just as Hosea experienced. He emerges as a wounded God, bent on resolution. Which is where, finally, we come in to the picture. And where at the end of Hosea we read of Yahweh planning to make His people loyal in ways only He can- through His Spirit. The whole story is amazing and even mysterious, such is the insight into God's love. Thus Hosea concludes with the challenge, 'Who can understand this?'.

Hos 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured nor numbered- The promises to Abraham would be fulfilled, despite such unfaithfulness; and they are the basis of God's new covenant with all those baptized into the Lord Jesus. Constantly in Hosea we see the paradoxes within grace, or at least, so they appear to men. Those who were "not My people" (:9) were still going to be God's people because they were beloved for the fathers' sakes, they were the seed of Abraham which would be as the sand of the sea. It is this paradox of utter grace which is the context in which this verse is quoted by Paul in Romans.

The "yet" has massive implications. Although Yahweh / Hosea threaten to end the marriage covenant, there is hope [as made explicit in Hos. 2] that the marriage will be restored. A new marriage covenant will be entered into. The reference to blessing like "the sand of the sea" in Hos. 1:10 alludes both to the promises to Abraham [which were the basis of the new covenant] and to common marriage blessings. The wife was wished fertility like the sand of the sea. So it is the new covenant which is offered to Israel- which Paul says is based on the promises to Abraham rather than the law given on Sinai.

And it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them- "In the place..." is hard to interpret. It may not have any geographical reference. it may simply mean "instead of being told 'You aren't My people', you will be told 'You are sons of the living God'. Perhaps it is Jezreel, or Jerusalem, although there is no specific reference to that being the place where they were told of their rejection. It was in exile that they were "told" they were not God's people; so the Chaldee reads: "And it shall come to pass in the place where they lived in exile among the peoples...". The potential possibility was that there in Babylon they would have a spiritual revival and return to being God's children. But most of the exiles preferred to remain there when the time for restoration came. This then becomes one of many prophecies of what could potentially have happened at the restoration which didn't come to pass because Israel would not.

‘You are not My people’, they will be called ‘sons of the living God’- When Lo-ammi was born and named “you are not my people”, immediately the prophet is inspired to make a tender prophecy of Israel’s final glory: “You are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea…it shall be said unto them, You are the sons of the living God” (Hos. 1:9,10; another example is in Hos. 12:8,9; 13:8,9). The word to circle in our Bibles is “yet”. In the face of all Israel’s sin, in the face of the inevitable judgment which this attracted, in the very moment when it is declared, God goes on to speak of His loving salvation. This is so hard for humans to take on board, called as we are to manifest this same grace of God. In the heat of the moment of others’ sin against us, we rarely find it in us to think let alone speak of their ultimate hope of salvation by grace. But this is the challenge of Hosea.

The reference to "the living God", the God who gives life, is because the Baal cults claimed to give life. Yahweh would be accepted, He hoped, as the source of life. Not Baal.

Hos 1:11 The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together- Remember that Hosea was a prophet to both Judah and Israel. Again we have a paradox, for in :7 we read of God's original plan to end things with Israel but save Judah. This apparent irrationality, or bouncing between two opposite positions very quickly, is exactly how Hosea would have felt each time he realized Gomer had fallen pregnant by another man. The potential possibility was that at the time of Judah's restoration from Babylon, the ten tribes would also return, and the Kingdom of God re-established in the land with a Messiah King, and the temple rebuilt in Zion according to the plans of Ez. 40-48. But this didn't happen, because Israel and Judah didn't repent, and most preferred to remain in the lands of their exile; they preferred exile to restoration, just as many do in essence today. For the gospel of the restoration of the kingdom under the new covenant is in essence the same Gospel preached by us today.

And they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land- The allusion is to how Israel had appointed themselves a leader to return to Egypt (Num. 14:4). But that will be changed; instead they "will go up from the land" under this chosen ruler, just as they went up from Egypt towards Canaan (Ex. 13:18). That exodus is continually alluded to in the restoration prophets, as the prototype of the restoration from Babylon and even Assyria. It was God's dream that they would reverse their previous unfaithfulness, just as Hosea dreamt that Gomer would; we see the same kind of reasoning in Hos. 2:15, where the valley of Achor, symbol of Israel's previous unfaithfulness, is to be turned into "a door of hope".

For great will be the day of Jezreel- "Jezreel" is literally 'the sowing of God', and the same word for 'sow' is found in Hos. 2:23, where God says that "I will sow her unto me in the earth". In line with the reversal of Israel's historical shame mentioned earlier in this verse, so the place of their previous defeat and judgment (see on :4) would be turned into the place of their being sown by God, to rise up in resurrected life. For this is how the metaphor of sowing is understood in 1 Cor. 15. Israel and Judah had been sown amongst the nations of their dispersion, but God's hope was that they would arise from there and again enter covenant relationship with Him and bring forth fruit to Him (Jer. 31:10). This was Hosea's hope of Gomer, but that never seems to have come true; and in a sense it was the same for God in that His people were unwilling to make the restoration which He had envisaged and potentially enabled.